That's the old ballgame Shreveport, chapter 24 (the final decade)

  Chapter 24

The final decade (2001-11)

Swamp Dragons, independents

The beginning of the end for professional baseball in Shreveport -- at least for now -- began even before the last couple of championship seasons.
  In 1994, the Shreveport Captains' ownership group since the mid-1970s decided the time was right to put the team up for sale, and an agreement was reached with investors in Austin, Texas. But the deal fell through, and the Captains remained in place.

     The 1995 Captains rolled to the franchise’s third Texas League championship in six years, and the 1997 team also reached the TL Championship Series, losing in the seventh and deciding game. 
     Then attendance began slipping, and the newness of Fair Grounds Field wore off. And early in the 2000 season, the announcement was made on May 23: Taylor Moore and the ownership group had sold the franchise.
     The buyer was California-based Mandalay Sports Entertainment, a sports investment group founded by Hollywood producer Peter Guber, with Hank Stickney as chief executive officer. Mandalay owned several minor-league baseball franchises.
The sale price was $4.5 million, with Taylor and brother Loy Moore retaining a small ownership share.
Mandalay took control of the franchise at the end of the 2000 season, with plans for marketing and ticket sales changes and assurances that the team would remain in town.

     With Steve Nitzel as president, the team colors changed (from the Captains' red and blue to green and black) and, significantly, the team nickname was changed -- after 30 years as Captains -- to Swamp Dragons.

The nickname change, in particular, was not a popular move in Shreveport-Bossier.

Attendance slipped badly in the 2001 season, and on Dec. 3 that year, Mandalay announced that the 2002 season would be its last in Shreveport, with a move planned for a $22.7 million, 10,600-seat ballpark under construction in Frisco, Texas, to be ready for the 2003 season.

And with that move was the probability that the team would become the Texas Rangers' Class AA affiliate. That left the San Francisco Giants, for the first time since the end of the 1978 season, to search for a new home for its Class AA team.

Also, 2002 was the last year of the Captains/Swamp Dragons' seven-year lease on Fair Grounds Field with the City of Shreveport for $15,000 a year.

On Aug. 31, 2002, the final game of Shreveport's long stay in Organized Baseball -- at least for the foreseeable future -- was played at Fair Grounds Field.

The Swamp Dragons beat Arkansas 1-0, and the game -- on college football's opening Saturday -- drew scant coverage in The Shreveport Times, five paragraphs on the bottom right of Page 4C.

Attendance was 672, and the season total -- even below SPAR Stadium 1970s/1980s level, was 24,569, a Texas League-record low that broke a mark (by Beaumont, 1941) which had stood for 61 years.

But professional baseball wasn't done in Shreveport. Starting in the 2003 season, independent league teams (no ties to Organized Baseball) played for nine years at Fair Grounds Field.

  That included three years in the Central League and six in the American Association. Through a variety of ownerships, the team nickname the first six years was the old name: Sports. It reverted to Captains the last three years when the team was called Shreveport-Bossier.

       Then in 2012, for the first time since 1967, there was no professional baseball team in Shreveport.

        By the start of the 2016 major-league season, pitchers Joe Nathan and  Ryan Vogelsong (San Francisco Giants) were the only remaining active ex-Shreveport players in the big leagues -- 14 years after the last Shreveport team in the Texas League. 

The managers

BILL RUSSELL -- Three years after his three-season tenure as Los Angeles Dodgers' manager ended, he was manager of the first Shreveport team nicknamed the Swamp Dragons. The team's record was 54-81, the fewest wins for a Shreveport team in 21 years. Russell was perhaps the best-known ex-player to manage in Shreveport -- the Dodgers' regular season shortstop for most of 18 seasons, a fine defensive player and .263 hitter, a three-time All-Star and five-time postseason participant. It was the only team he played for -- in 2,181 games. Shreveport was his last managing position. In 2019, he was an umpire observer for Major League Baseball in the Los Angeles/Anaheim area.

     MARIO MENDOZA -- The manager of the final Shreveport team in Organized Baseball (at least for now), his Swamp Dragons had a 60-79 record. As a major-league shortstop, he was a defensive standout but became known for the "Mendoza Line," a .200 batting average. Created by some teammates, it was a tease as he struggled to hit (although he had a .215 average for some eight seasons). He played in Mexico for seven years after his MLB time and had a .291 batting average there, eventually being voted into the Mexican League Hall of Fame. After his year in Shreveport, he returned to manage Mexican teams over the next decade.

       TERRY BEVINGTON -- Manager of the Chicago White Sox for most of three seasons (1995-97), in 2003 he was the first Shreveport manager in the city's nine-year independent era (not affiliated with Organized Baseball). It began with new ownership (Scott Berry and Gary Elliston), in the Central League (2003-05), and with the return of the decades-old team nickname -- the Sports. Bevington returned to manage in Shreveport for a short while in 2008.

    BOB FLORI -- A longtime coach and manager, mostly for independent league teams, he managed in Shreveport for three seasons (2005-07), with only moderate success. In 2006, the Shreveport-Bossier Captains finished second in the American Association (54-39 record), then lost in the first round of the playoffs. A minor-league catcher only briefly for parts of three seasons (1958-59 Yankees chain, 1966 Reds' Class A team in Tampa), his greatest team was in 1995 with Aberdeen in the Prairie League -- an astounding 56-13 record, best ever in pro baseball. The next year that team was 54-24, so the two-year total was 110-37. He died Sept. 14, 2009, in St. Petersburg, Fla., at age 79.

    RICKY VANASSELBERG -- He mostly played (as a catcher and corner infielder) and managed (10 years) for independent league teams, other than 27 games in the Baltimore Orioles' organization in 1997. He was the Shreveport-Bossier Captains manager in 2009 and 2010, and the second year his team won the league championship -- one of four title teams he had as a manager. From Gardner, La., just outside Alexandria, he played at Baptist Christian College in Shreveport, then played mostly for Alexandria's independent-league teams and managing there for three years (2006-08). After Shreveport, he remained in the American Association as manager for four years at Grand Prairie, Texas.

Top players from the era

     JEROME WILLIAMS -- A strong 6-foot-3 right-hander, he was only 19, in his third pro season, when he pitched for the Swamp Dragons in 2001, starting 23 games and working 130 innings, with a 9-7 record and 3.95 ERA. Two years later, he was a San Francisco Giants' starter and, with 43 starts in 2003-04, he had records of 7-5 and 10-7 in those seasons. Soon his career meandered; he pitched in the majors for eight different teams and was in the minors with three other organizations, and he was still pitching (and up to 260 pounds) in 2017-18, for independent- and winter-league teams. He had been the Giants' first-round draft pick out of Waipahu, Hawaii, in 1999, and in his 11-year MLB career, he had a 52-66 record in 236 games (149 starts) and a little more than 1,000 innings. In 2019, he moved into coaching as pitching coach for the Kingsport Mets (Class A Appalachian League). He resides with his family in Mission Viejo, Calif.

      JESSE FOPPERT -- A right-hander out of the University of San Francisco, a second-round draft pick by the Giants in 2001, he was with the Swamp Dragons the next year. He made 11 starts and had a 3-3 record and 2.79 ERA in 61⅓ innings, then started 21 games for San Francisco the following season (8-9 record, 5.03 ERA). He had short stays with the Giants in 2004 and 2005, but never returned to the big leagues in a career that ended after the 2009 season.

       

     TODD LINDEN -- A switch-hitting outfielder from Washington state, he transferred to LSU and played center field for the Tigers. and spent most of his first pro season (2002) playing center field for Shreveport. He was in 111 games and led the Swamp Dragons' regulars in batting average (.314), home runs (12) and RBI (52), and also hit 26 doubles. He was with San Francisco for parts of five seasons, but his most active season was 61 games. for no more than 60 and 61 games in a season. Picked up on waivers by Florida in 2007, he hit .271 in 85 games for the Marlins; after that, he played mostly Triple-A and a couple of years in Japan and retired after the 2013 season, becoming a coach in the Giants' system.

     LANCE NIEKRO -- In his second pro season (2002), he was Shreveport's first baseman and hit .310 in 79 games. His 92 hits included 20 doubles and four homers, and he drove in 34 runs. A second-round Giants' draft pick after starring in high school in Lakeland, Fla., and at Florida Southern in that city, he had a familiar last name (he was Joe's son and Phil's nephew). He reached the majors for five at-bats with San Francisco in 2003, then was a Giants' starter (alternating with J.T. Snow) in 2005 when he hit .252 in 113 games. But the Giants sent him to Triple-A in 2006, and after a brief stay in 2007, he never returned to the big leagues. After a short try as a pitcher, he became a coach at Florida Southern in 2010  and the head coach in 2012.

     BOOF BONSER -- A right-hander -- given name John Paul -- who was a first-round draft pick by San Francisco in 2000 out of St. Petersburg, Fla., he pitched briefly for Shreveport in 2002 (five starts, 1-2 record, 24⅓ innings), one of his six minor-league seasons before he made the majors. He broke into the rotation with Minnesota in 2006 and, after a 7-6 record in 18 starts, started Game 2 of the American League Division Series for the Twins. He was 8-12 in 30 starts in 2007, but his career faded after that, beset by shoulder and elbow surgeries. He had four big-league seasons and pitched through 2014,with stops in Taiwan and independent leagues.

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      Shreveport's nine years with independent-league teams included three players who had been in the major leagues:

      TODD SELF -- (see chapter 3, "The Major Players").

      HECTOR CARRASCO -- At 40 years old, he was the closer -- and star -- for the 2010 American Association champion Shreveport-Bossier Captains with 22 saves in 41 games (2-4 record) and a couple of clutch playoff outings. He was back in Shreveport briefly (13 games) in 2011, but never got back to the majors, where in 12 seasons (the last in 2007 for the Angels), he pitched in 647 games (44-50 record). The Dominican right-hander was most productive for Cincinnati early in his career (pitched in the 1995 National League playoffs) and then for Minnesota.

       JOEY GATHRIGHT -- He was age 30 when he played in the outfield for the 2011 Captains, batting only .190 in 21 games. In that season, he had his last major-league stint -- seven games, one at-bat (a walk) with Boston. From Bonnabel High in Kenner, La., he reached the majors with Tampa Bay in 2004 and the best of his seven MLB seasons was 2007 when he batted .307 in 74 games for Kansas City. He played in 105 games for the Royals the next year. He was with Cincinnati's Triple-A team in Louisville for a couple of months in 2012, then played another couple of years in independent leagues.